"Fuck my life."

Surprisingly, Erika had felt better after a nap, well, no, not better exactly, she still felt some kind of terrible hunger in the deep swells of her stomach, like there was something rotting inside of her and tearing her apart from the inside out in some kind of cruel punishment that hurt. So it wasn't that she actually felt better, no, she just managed to hide the strangeness that had possessed her most completely alot better than she had the day she'd stumbled home with blood soaking her shirt and a ravenous starvation that had made her eat raw meat and snarl at anything that dared to try and take it away.

But that had been yesterday, and after assuring her uncle that she was definitely fine and not of the urge of a mental breakdown, and that she'd just had some serious menstrual cramps that had made her want to fucking throw herself off of the nearest roof, he'd eventually been subdued, still watching her carefully as if she was a bomb about to detonate as he hovered around her awkwardly...and not knowing that that was exactly how she felt too, even after she'd showered and changed and ate some semblance of breakfast that just felt stale of her tongue, she just felt...wrong, like her body was...no longer her own.

Like there was something thick inside of her, clogging up her veins, burrowed inside the deepest parts of her and sinking into the crooks and crevices like a well oiled machine, like there was once something soft inside her but now it was dead and it was rotting and it fucking hurt.

Perhaps Erika was being dramatic, perhaps that traumatic knowledge of what happened to her when a blade had been pushed into her skin where it had kissed her precious organs and made blood spill from trembling lips that had whispered her weakness in the darkness of the night where only death was around to mourn her. Perhaps, it had been a dream, a nightmare, perhaps she really was dead and in some kind of limbo, perhaps she was a melancholy ghost cursed with immortality to walk through New York, howling into the sky and asking if her grief hadn't been punishment enough for her damned life.

Yes, dramatic was probably the most accurate term that described the young girl at the present moment as she stumbled her way down the street, trying to keep herself busy, to keep herself sane as she kept her dark gaze glued to her cracked phone with her music playing an gentle lullaby in her ears...mainly because the first time she tried to blast her usual chaotic playlist, she'd felt like her whole brain had started to melt in its domed prison, obviously resulting in the crack that now ruined the once pristine screen, much to her own annoyance and frustration.

"Fuck my life." Erika grumbled quietly, pulling her hat lower down her forehead as if that would hide her away from the rest of the world, glaring down at the side walk as she practically danced over the cracks and imperfections in the pavement in an effort to simply keep herself busy and not lose herself into the rather terrifying thoughts of just what the hell was happening to her, and hoping that a specific cake that always had just the right amount of chocolate would make her feel better.

However, before she could make the turn that would take her to her favourite cafe, she suddenly felt her whole body tense, a ringing in her ears that screamed danger, danger, danger, loud and unapologetic as she froze, face twisting with unease as goosebumps seemed to breeze over her skin like an ominous warning that she had to heed to or she'd suffer the consequences if she ignored it like she so desperately wanted to...and then, she looked up, a look that barely lasted a moment as it anxiously flickered around her...and landed on the shocked face of the fucking bastard that had almost been her desolate ruin.

"Fuck."

The word was pushed from her trembling lips like a physical force, her eyes going wide, huge actually as her mind flashed back to pain, her stomach erupting in agony, his vile voice whispering in her ear and making her cheek damp with his warm breath, the fear that possessed her, the overwhelming horror at the unknown, the knowledge that death was coming ever closer to caging her in their boned prison...but most importantly, staring at him now, was just the final nail of the coffin that what had happened to her wasn't some kind of psychotic break that had alot of strange coincidences that made her believe it was real.

Because there he was, standing there like he'd seen a ghost, the ghost he'd made of her, the ghost he'd killed with a vicious greed for reasons she'd never understand while she stared at him the same, surrounded by his, oh god, was that a gang? Was he part of a gang? He was part of a fucking gang...and just like that, time seemed to snap into place, a band that had finally been broken under pressure, and Erika seemed to finally realise just how dangerous her situation had gotten as they all turned to look at her with something dangerous and vile in their eyes of wicked intentions.

And then there was one moment, just one singular moment of hesitation, a moment where she allowed her fear to consume her like a starving disease eating it's way through her trembling skin...before the young girl hit the ground running, her bag slipping from her shoulder, clattering the floor as the contents spilled out but she didn't care, she couldn't care because she was so completely fucked, even more so when she heard the pounding footsteps following behind her, only just managing to catch their angered shouts over the pounding in her ears as her blood curled and her heart seemed to beat so swiftly and painfully, that she felt like she was under the threat of cardiac arrest.

Whatever crime she'd committed in a past life, she was definitely sorry if all of this bullshit was to be her punishment, she thought to herself desperately, turning the corner and almost losing her footing as she skidded in something that she really didn't want to take a closer look at, the smell alone assuring her that it was disgusting as her bloodied hands scrambled for purchase on the wall next to her, pushing her shoulder against it to regain her semblance of balance as she took off once more with her aching legs becoming nothing but blurs beneath her mortal corpse.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, the words kept repeating, drowning out any of her rational thoughts as she kept running, whimpered sobs slipping from her lips like a haunting prayer that begged for salvation, a bloody game for survival that she kept seeming to lose as she hoped for some omnipotent being to hear her...but the skies were empty and barren, abandoned because of the shame that was humanity, and how could she blame them when it was going to be her fate too.

However, the further she went with the bubbling gasps making her chest ache and heave...the more she realised she had no idea where she was going, which really, shouldn't of been at the top of her priority considering she was being chased by the dude who tried to murder her and his group of friends which were taking the term ride or die a little bit too literal for her liking, but when she finally reached a dead end that put an abrupt stop to her quick moving feet, the walls of the alleyway closing in on her until she was being crushed from their murderous weight...she figured that then was the right time to start panicking.

Fate had damned her the moment the desire for peace had been asked from her exhausted lips that day she'd come home covered in her own blood with something wrong inside of her, and now? Now it was time to pay her dos as she swallowed thickly and turned to face her doom as they crept ever closer with smug grins, their callous words unable to be caught in the turmoil she called a mind as tears blurred her vision and unmade apologises were whispered from her trembling lips, her parents, her uncle, her- Peter, all of them...because they would be the only ones affected by her death while she would simply be dead.

"YOU ARE AN EMBARRASSMENT! RUNNING FROM THESE LITTLE PUSSIES! "

And then Erika froze as that voice, that sickeningly familar voice, an unutterable growl in her throat, came from around her, embracing her in its rough gravel that scratched against her ears until she feared they'd bleed, circling and circling around her like a haunting ghost in bloom. But now, now there was something different about it, something almost...alive as an unfathomable rage and vicious hunger built up inside her, mounting against the hesitation, against the terror, against everything that had once controlled and maimed her, but it wasn't hers, it couldn't of been hers...it was far too strong and wrong.

There was something beneath her skin, there was something twisting in her veins, there was something rotting inside her until it had forced her organs to make room, she could feel it all, every change, every shift in her body that she wasn't moving it controlling, could feel something thick and cold and vile swimming across her flesh like a mocking caress...and even out of the corner of her eye, she could see the audacious bastards snarling at her, fists clenched and gazes hungry, ready to make sure she stayed down this time...but it was all moving so slowly, so quietly, like she was drunk on nothing more than fear.

"I WILL HANDLE THIS!"

But then it seemed to finally click into place that something was fucking talking to her from inside of her and let put an abrupt, bordering on terrifying giggle that sounded more like a sob than anything else, forgetting about her impending doom for a moment as they kept coming closer and closer, even as she grabbed a fistful of her own hair and tugged until it hurt because what the hell was going on? Before she started to laugh, a hysterical sounding thing that really didn't help matters at all as she stood there and cackled like an mental patient. "Oh god, it's happened, it's actually finally happened...I've lost my fucking mind."

Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, Erika truly thought she was handling it all rather well, her ongoing flirtation with the ever tempting death, the literal fucking voice in her head that seemed to be getting more and more restless by the minute...however, that rather weak image seemed to finally break down into pieces when one of the men grabbed her...and something black leapt out of her skin to grab him back and fling him into the wall with such a sickening crack! That she felt her whole mouth fill with bile...and that was the exact moment that it all went to shit as everyone started screaming.

"What the fuck is that-"

And most importantly, why the fuck was it coming out of her? Was what she wanted to shout back at the bastards, wanting to delve into the chaos that had suddenly exploded around her as she stared in absolute horror at the thick black goop that was encasing her arm like an inky prison, moving and shifting with her every flinch, her every breath...apart of her but explicitly not at the same time as it seemed to shiver in excitement, the strange, powerful hunger clawing it's way out of her throat once more as it began to dance it's way over her body, until both of her arms were turned into something that looked nothing short of monstrous.

"THAT IS I, THAT IS US."

Us? Us? No, she didn't want to have any part in this us, she didn't want to feel this bullshit ever again as something worked it's way inside her, pulling at her like a puppet on a string to lunge forward, grabbing another one of the men who'd hunted her like wolves to prey, entrapping him in black tresses and then just pounding him, literally, against the floor, lifting him up, bringing him back down, over and over again as his screams turned to gurgled sobs and then to nothing as the flaps of his face peeled open and showed the bloody bones beneath that splintered like broken shards of glass on the stained floor suddenly full of red sin.

Erika gagged loudly, of course she fucking gagged as she watched literal clumps of human meat go flying off in all directions, her eyes watering and her body erupting in a tremor that almost brought her to her fucking knees and god, she wanted to run, no longer for her own survival but for her own sanity as she watched the black goop lash out once more, forcing her to duck out of the way of a bullet by sticking her down to the pavement and then surging itself through the air to impale the bastard that had shot at her, because that was apparently the correct response as she felt his blood splatter across her paling cheek while his lifeless eyes held her own in accusation.

Because how fucked up was it that she almost felt guilty, even knowing that these bastards had been gunning for her first, that their cruel intentions had been bared like fangs poised at her vulnerable throat to maim her and rip her apart until she was a mere statistic...because now here she was, surrounded by fear and dead men, going from the victim...to the executioner.

But it wasn't until she felt something being plunged into her stomach once more did those thoughts get drowned out by the wicked tides of temptation and vengeance, when her gaze looked down to see a familar blade buried in the once fragile flesh of her stomach at her damned distraction, and suddenly, that guilt was gone as she slowly looked up with eyes that flickered white to glare...down at the man who'd stabbed her, down at the man who'd fucking killed her, down at her ruin and her creation as she seemed to grow and grow and grow while her skin was embraced by something cold and almost comforting as it possessed her completely.

"No-no man, what the fuck! What the fuck-"

And where Erika had once stood...the symbiote VENOM had taken her place, his feet forming cracks in the pavement below as it bowed under his terrible weight, drooling teeth biting the air as his tongue slipped from his mouth, tasting the fear, the ominous terror swirling around the alleyway like something thick and Oh so delicious as he grinned dangerously, his large, clawed hand wrapping around his dinners throat to lift him up until the little insect was eye level with his monstrous height as it squirmed and cried, looking into the disfigured face of his doom as it snarled at him hungrily.

"EYES, LUNGS, PANCREAS...SO MANY SNACKS, AND SO LITTLE TIME."

He growled, voice nothing short of a mocking grumble that seemed to shake the earth he stood on, thick strings of salivating drool dripping from his sharp mouth as he licked the side of his meals face, groaning deeply in pleasure at the thought of finally having some good food...and the thought of revenge for his host being a rather coincidental bonus, as his inky black face split in two halves, and tore the mans head from his body, swallowing his screams, drinking in his lasting fear as blood splayed out from his decapitated body like a hose, painting the alleyway red as it just kept coming from the jerking and spasming corpse.

Yet as quickly as it had all begun it was over just as swiftly as VENOM slipped back into his host, shrinking and curling his way underneath her flesh in a way that Erika couldn't dare describe without feeling horribly violated as she stood in the middle of pure carnage, blood still splattered across her face, her clothes and god there was a really fucking weird taste in her mouth that she really didn't want to think about because she was pretty sure it was brain matter or something as equally as disgusting and what was worse was that there was some weird fucking part of her that almost liked the taste because of course that would happen to her, why the fuck not.

Then, of course, the poor girl didn't last another moment before she was throwing up all over the pavement, ignoring the literal grumbling that she could hear in the back of her mind as if that- that thing was offended by her reaction as she gagged and heaved and sobbed until tears were trailing down her face and her throat was bloody and raw...what the fuck was happening to her? And more importantly...did she seriously just fucking eat a dude?